With the plethora of Euro-style games that test strategy and cooperation skills, there’s no room for Monopoly on the shelves at Bend game shop Modern Games.

“The American-style board games are a lot of this roll and move,” said Modern Games manager Angelika Barrus. “You know, Monopoly and Clue, it’s roll the dice and move your pawn around the board, and that has its place, but the Euro-style game is more about the in-depth mechanics (and) what else can you do with a set of dice aside from move a piece around.”

Barrus points out that Monopoly and Clue are great gateway games to the more Euro-style games they have stocked, adding “We love all those games, but they’re just not what we carry.”

Modern Games has been in their current location for a year after moving from one side of the Box Factory to the other. This year, however, things look very different due to concerns over the coronavirus.

“As soon as the stay-at-home order came down, we moved to curbside pickup, and we created a (webstore) as quickly as we could,” Barrus said.

The move to a contactless pickup option has been well received, according to Barrus, with many expressing their appreciation that the store is simply open and has options for them to purchase games.

“The first week we moved to curbside pickup … we were rockin’, I think that it was that initial week before spring break, and parents were looking for something to do with their kids,” she said, “So puzzles were extremely popular and board games, you know, things that families could do together to kind of stay away from the screens and have some quality family time.”

Parents in particular have expressed a great deal of appreciation for the shop, offering an alternative to screen time for their children.

“I’ve had a lot of appreciative parents just (say), ‘this is a good alternative.’ Because, of course, with gaming, you have strategy, you have critical thinking, you’ve got social interaction. You’ve got all of these useful skills that you have to hone, and you learn when you play board games.”

What to play

For anyone that may feel a bit intimidated by the amount of games on the shelves, especially for those who are more used to a rousing game of Clue, Barrus and the staff at Modern Games are dedicated to helping out.

In fact, it’s one of Barrus’ favorite parts of her job.

The first questions are what have you played before, and what do you like to play? she said. “Then from there, depending on the answer, good core classics, good family or kind of all ages, core games that most people really enjoy are going to be Ticket to Ride, Catan, of course, and Carcassonne are the three core.”

Barrus’ other recommendations for starter games include: 5-Minute Dungeon, a cooperative game where the player must try and escape a dungeon in, you guessed it, five-minutes; Splendor, a marketplace style game that is easy to learn but “there’s depth and complexity in the strategy that you kind of learn as you go,” Barrus said. And Century Spice Road, a card based trading game where the player aims to become the best spice trader and therefore earn the most points.

Recently, Pandemic has been a popular selection of Modern Games’ customers, as well as sleeper hit Quacks of Quedlinburg. The premise of the game, Barrus explained, “You’re potioneers (potion makers), and you are trying to brew the best potion and get the most points without having your potion explode in your face. So it’s like a fun bag builder, press your luck kind of. Another one of those that’s easy to get into and it’s cheeky and fun.”

But board games are not all the shop has to offer.

They supply the trading card game Magic: The Gathering, tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons, Warhammer and miniature figurines for the games along with painting supplies.

For the players of these communal games they’ve had to adjust to this new world of social-distancing, too.

Barrus indicated that while Dungeons & Dragons is relatively easy to do over a chat platform like Discord, Magic: The Gathering, where cards are physically traded, had to adapt quickly.

“We still have people using booster packs to play with at home,” she said, “But Magic Arena is how most people are playing ‘Magic’ online.”

The program, created by Renton, Washington-based company, Wizards of the Coast (who own Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons and other trading card games) can be downloaded for free from mtgarena.com. It is also a way for players to stay connected to their local store.

“The stores, we can run a digital, what’s called FNM, Friday Night Magic…event and give out codes to our customers who do play on Arena to kind of keep them engaged with the store,” Barrus explained, “and they can still get to play digitally and also kind of have some feedback for the store and get…cool digital stuff online.”

All players have to do is screenshot their deck from MTGArena and share it on Modern Games’ Facebook page to get the code for online goodies.

There is even a new set releasing on May 15 for Magic: The Gathering players, Ikoria, which is available for pre-purchase online from Modern Games.

“So life is still kinda a little normal,” Barrus laughed. “At least they’re still releasing the set so some people can play.”

Reopening

Typically, customers can enjoy Modern Games’ play space and cafe which takes up about half of the store’s space.

The play space consists of several tables where customers can gather and, for a $5 fee, play games from the store’s library containing 275 rotating titles of both new and donated games. The charge is good for as many games as you want to play for as long as you want to play them in the store.

There are libations to sip while rolling the dice as the shop offers beer, wine, coffee, tea and, if all goes well, they will soon be adding snacks.

The main retail space and front half of the shop plans to reopen to the public on Friday, May 15, but with some stipulations.

The play space and the library will remain closed until it is safe to reopen them with proper social distancing and sanitation habits.

For the retail half of the store, Barrus and the staff will be taking extra precautions too including wearing masks, enforcing one way traffic, extra hand washing and disinfecting, plastic barriers at the cash register and offering hand sanitizer available to customers on entering.

“…You know a board game is an interactive thing you wanna pick it up and look at it, you wanna read the back,” Barrus said, “You wanna understand what the components are, just like anything else so anything that any customer touches will be disinfected. The same with anything I touch will be disinfected.”

That interactiveness goes beyond just looking at the box.

Barrus speculates that the reason gaming has had such a rise in popularity has been not only the creativity of the games or the acknowledgement of games requiring useful skills like strategy and resource management.

“It’s about the social interaction,” she said, “And at the end of the day, I think that’s the core, it’s a social thing, and with … tablets and phones — you know everyone is sick of hearing about all of the electronics we have, right? But the reality of it is that it’s a good way to kind of put all of that away for a little bit — for an hour — and interact with someone over the table…even if you lose you still got to do something, which is fun. So I think that’s more of it. People looking for quality time.”

Modern Games

550 SW Industrial Way, Suite 150, Bend

Hours currently vary, check Facebook and website for up to date information

moderngamesbend.com, facebook.com/moderngamesbend or 541-639-8121